Post by neferetus on Apr 30, 2007 12:45:52 GMT -5
Following is William P. Zuber’s account of the Escape of Moses Rose that appeared in The Texas Almanac in 1873.
AN ESCAPE FROM THE ALAMO
PRAIRIE PLAINS, GRIMES COUNTY, TEXAS, MAY 7 1871
EDITOR TEXAS ALMANAC:
I regard the following account worthy of preservation, as it embraces a report of the last scene in the Alamo that has ever been made known to the survivors of those who fell in the fortress.
Moses Rose, a native of France, was an early immigrant to Texas , and resided in Nacodoches, where my father, Mr. Abraham Zuber made his acquaintance in 1827. I believe that he never married. My father regarded and treated him as a friend, and I have often heard him say that he believed Rose to be a man of strict veracity. In 1830, I saw him several times at my father’s residence, in what is now St. Augustine county. He was then about forty-five years old, and spoke very broken English.
Rose was a warm friend of Col. James Bowie and accompanied or followed him to the Alamo in the fall of 1835, and continued with him till within three days of the fall of the fort.
During the last five days and nights of his stay, the enemy bombarded the fort almost incessantly, and several times advanced to the walls and the men within were so constantly engaged that they ate at slept only at short intervals, while one body of the enemy was retiring to be relieved by another, yet they had not sustained a single loss.
The following is the substance of Rose’s account of his escape and the circumstances connected therewith, as he related them to my parents, and they related them to me:
About two hours before sunset on the third day of March, 1836, the bombardment suddenly ceased and the enemy withdrew at an unusual distance. Taking advantage of that opportunity, Co. Travis paraded all of his effective men in a single file, and, taking his position in front of the centre, he stood for some moments, apparently speechless from emotion. Then, nerving himself for the occasion, he addressed them substantially as follows:
“MY BRAVE COMPANIONS--- Stern necessity compels me to employ the few moments afforded by this probably brief cessation of conflict in making known to you the most interesting, yet the most solemn, melancholy, and unwelcome fact that perishing humanity can realize. But how can I find the language to prepare you for its reception? I cannot do so. All I can say to this purpose is to prepare for the worst. I must come to the point. Our fate is sealed. Within a few days---perhaps in a few hours---we must all be in Eternity. This is our destiny and we can not avoid it. This is our certain doom.
I have deceived you long by the promise of help. But I crave your pardon, hoping that after hearing my explanation, you will not only regard my conduct as pardonable, but heartily sympathize with me in my extreme necessity. In deceiving you, I also deceived myself, having first been deceived by others.
I have continually received the strongest assurances of help from home. Every letter from the council and every one I have seen from individuals at home has teemed with assurances that our people were ready, willing and anxious to come to our relief: and that within a very short time we might confidently expect recruits enough to expel any force that would be brought against us. These assurances I received as facts. They inspired me with the greatest confidence that our little band would be the nucleus of an army of sufficient magnitude to repel our foes and to enforce peace on our own terms. In the honest and simple confidence of my heart, I have transmitted to you these promises of help and my confident hopes of success. But the promised help has not come and our hopes are not to be realized.
I have evidently confided too much in the promises of our friends. But let us not be in haste to censure them. The enemy has invaded our territory much earlier than we anticipated; and their present approach is a matter of surprise. Our friends were evidently not informed of our perilous condition in time to save us. Doubtless they would have been here by the time they expected any considerable force of the enemy. When they find a Mexican army in their midst, I hope they will show themselves true to their cause.
My calls to Colonel Fannin remain unanswered and my messengers have not returned. The probabilities are that his command has fallen into the hands of the enemy, or been cut to pieces, and that our couriers have been cut off.
I trust that I have now explained my conduct to your satisfaction and that you do not censure me for my course. I must again refer to the assurances from home. They are what deceived me, and they caused me to deceive you. Relying upon those assurances, I determined to remain within these walls until the promised help should arrive, stoutly resisting all assaults from without. Upon the same reliance, I retained you here, regarding the increasing forces of our assailants with contempt till thy out-numbered us more than twenty to one, and escape became impossible. For the same reason, I scorned their demand of a surrender at discretion and defied their threat to put every one of us to the sword if the fort should be taken by storm.
I must now speak of our present situation. Here we are surrounded by an army that could almost eat us for breakfast, from whose arms our lives are for the present protected by these stone walls. We have no hope for help, for no force that we could have reasonably expected could cut its way through the strong ranks of these Mexicans. We dare not surrender; for should we do so, that black flag now waving in our sight, as well as the merciless character of our enemies, admonishes us of what would be our doom. We cannot cut our way out through the enemy’s ranks; for, in attempting that, we should all be slain in less than ten minutes. Nothing remains, then, but to stay within this fort and fight to the last moment. In this case we must, sooner or later all be slain; for I am sure that Santa Anna is determined to storm the fort and take it, even at the greatest cost of the lives of his own men.
Then we must die! Our speedy dissolution is a fixed and inevitable fact. Our business is not to make a fruitless effort to save or lives, but to choose the manner of our death. But three modes are presented to us. Let us choose that by which we may best serve our country. Shall we surrender and be deliberately shot without taking the life of a single enemy? Shall we try to cut our way through the Mexican ranks and be butchered before we can kill twenty of our adversaries? I am opposed to either method; for in either case we could but lose our lives without benefiting our friends at home---our fathers and mothers, our brothers and sisters, our wives and little ones. The Mexican army is strong enough to march through the country and exterminate its inhabitants, and our countrymen are not able to oppose them in the open field. My choice, then, is to remain in this fort, to resist every assault, and to sell our lives as dearly as possible.
Then let us band together as brothers and vow to die together. Let us resolve to withstand our adversaries to the last; and at each advance to kill as many of them as possible. And when at last they shall storm our fortress, let us kill them as they come! Kill them as they scale our walls! Kill them as they leap within! kill them as they raise their weapons and as they use them! Kill them as they kill our companions! And continue to kill them as long as one of us shall remain alive!
By this policy I trust we shall so weaken our enemies that our countrymen at home can meet them on fair terms, cut them up, expel them from the country, and thus establish their own independence and secure prosperity and happiness to our families and our country. And be assured that our memory will be gratefully cherished by posterity till all history shall be erased and all noble deeds shall be forgotten.
But I leave every man to his own choice. Should any man prefer to surrender and be tied and shot; or to attempt an escape through the Mexican ranks and be killed before he can run a hundred yards, he is at liberty to do so.
My choice is to stay in this fort and die for my country, fighting as long as breath shall remain in my body. This I will do, even if you leave me alone. Do as you think best---but no man can die with me without affording me comfort in the moment of death.” Colonel Travis then drew his sword and with its point traced a line upon the ground extending from the right to the left of the file. Then, resuming his position in front of the center, he said, “I now want every man who is determined to stay here and die with me to come across this line. Who will be the first? March!”
The first respondent was Tapley Holland, who leaped the line at a bound, exclaiming, “ I am ready to die for my country!” His example was instantly followed by every man in the file, with the exception of Rose. Manifest enthusiasm was universal and tremendous. Every sick man that could walk arose from his bunk and tottered across the line. Colonel Bowie, who could not leave his bed, said, “ Boys, I am not able to go to you, but I wish some of you would be so kind as to remove my cot over there.” Four men instantly ran to the cot and, each lifting a corner, carried it across the line. Then every sick man who could not walk made the same request and had his bunk removed in like manner.
Rose, too was deeply affected, but differently from his companions. He stood till every man but himself had crossed the line. A consciousness of the real situation overpowered him. He sank upon the ground, covered his face, and yielded to his own reflections. For a time he was unconscious of what was transpiring around him. A bright idea came to his relief: He spoke the Mexican dialect very fluently, and, could he once get safely out of the fort, he might easily pass for a Mexican and effect his escape. Thus encouraged, he suddenly roused as if from sleep. He looked over the area of the fort; every sick man’s berth was at its wonted place; every effective soldier was at his post as if waiting orders; he felt as if dreaming.
He directed a searching glance at the cot of Colonel Bowie. There lay his gallant friend. Colonel David Crockett was leaning over the cot, conversing with its occupant in an undertone. After a few seconds, Bowie looked at Rose and said: “You seem not to be willing to die with us, Rose!” “No,” said Rose, “I am not prepared to die and shall not do so if I can avoid it.” Then Crockett also looked at him and said, “You may as well conclude to die with us, old man, for escape is impossible.”
Rose made no reply, but looked up at the top of the wall. “I have often done worse than to climb that wall,” thought he. Suiting the action to the thought, he sprang up, seized his wallet of unwashed clothes, and ascended the wall. Standing on it’s top, he looked down within to take a last view of his dying friends. They were all now in motion, but what they were doing, he heeded not. Overpowered by his feelings, he looked away and saw them no more.
Looking down without, he was amazed at the scene of death that met his gaze. From the wall to a considerable distance beyond, the ground was literally covered with slaughtered Mexicans and pools of blood.
He viewed the horrid scene but a moment. He threw down his wallet and leaped after it; he alighted on his feet, but the momentum of the spring threw him sprawling upon his stomach in a puddle of blood. After several seconds he recovered his breath, arose and picked up his wallet; it had fallen open and several garments had rolled out upon the blood. He hurriedly thrust them back, without trying to cleanse them of the coagulated blood which adhered to them. Then, throwing the wallet across his shoulders, he walked rapidly away.
He took the road which led down to the river around the bend to the ford and through the town by the church. He waded the river at the ford and passed through the town. He saw no person in town, but the doors were all closed and San Antonio appeared as a deserted city.
After passing through town, he turned down the river. A stillness as of death prevailed. When he had gone about a quarter of mile below the town, his ears were saluted by the thunder of the bombardment which was then renewed. That thunder continued to remind him that his friends were true to their cause by a continuous roar with but slight intervals until a little before sunrise on the morning of the sixth, when it ceased and he heard no more.
At twilight he recrossed the river on a foot-log about three miles below the town. He then directed his course eastwardly towards the Guadalupe River, carefully bearing to the right to avoid the Gonzales road.
On the night of the third he traveled all night, but made but little progress, as his way was interrupted by large tracts of cactus, or prickly pear, which constantly gored him with thorns and forced him out of his course. On the morning of the fourth, he was in a wretched plight for traveling, for his legs were full of thorns and very sore. The thorns were very painful and continued to work deeper into the flesh till they produced chronic sores, which are supposed to have terminated his life.
Profiting by experience, he traveled no more by night, but on the two evenings following he made his bed on the soft mesquite grass. On the sixth of March he crossed the Guadalupe by rolling a seasoned log into the water and paddling across with his hands. He afterwards crossed the Colorado in the same manner.
After ascending a high bluff---the east bank of the Guadalupe---he found himself at a deserted house, at which he found plenty of provisions and cooking vessels. There he took his first nourishment after leaving the Alamo. Travel had caused the thorns to work so deep in the flesh that he could not bear the pain of pulling them out, and he had become lame. There he rested two or three days, hoping that his lameness would subside, but it rather grew worse. Thenceforth, he traveled on roads, subsisting, except in the instance to be noted, on provisions which he found in deserted houses. The families were retreating before the threatening advance of the enemy, and between the Guadalupe and Colorado every family on his route had left home. Between the Colorado and the Brazos he found only one family at home. With them he stayed a considerable time; but probably from want of knowledge or skill, they did nothing to relieve his sore legs.
He continued his journey toilsomely, tediously and painfully for several weeks, in which time he encountered many hardships and dangers which for want of space cannot be inserted here. He finally arrived at the residence of my father on Lake Creek, in which is now Grimes County.
The thorns had worked so deeply into his flesh, and rendered him so lame that he walked in much pain, and his steps were short and slow. Of course he was feverish and sick. Moreover he had not changed his apparel since leaving the Alamo. My father supplied him with a clean suit, and my mother had his clothes washed.
My parents had seen in the Telegraph and Texas Register a partial list of those who had fallen at the Alamo, and in it had observed the name of Rose. Having not heard of his escape, they had no doubt that he had died with his companions. On his arrival, my father recognized him instantly, and exclaimed, “My God Rose! Is this you or is it your ghost?” “This is Rose and not a ghost”, was the reply.
My mother caused her washing servant to open Rose’s wallet in her own presence, and found some of the garments glued together with the blood in which they had fallen when thrown from the Alamo.
My parents also examined his legs and by use of forceps, extracted an incredible number of cactus thorns, some of them an inch and a half in length, each of which drew out a lump of flesh and was followed by a stream of blood. Salve which my mother made was applied to his sores and they soon began to heal.
Rose remained at my father’s between two and three weeks. during which time his sores improved rapidly and he hoped soon to be well. He then left for home. We had reliable information of him but once after his departure. He had arrived at him home in Nacodoches, but traveling on foot had caused his legs to inflame anew, and his sores had grown so much worse that his friends thought he could not live for many months. That was the last we heard of him.
During his stay at my father’s Rose related to my parents an account of what transpired in the Alamo before he left it, of his escape and of what befell him afterwards, and at their request he rehearsed it several times till my mother could’ve repeated it as well as he. Most of the minutiae here recorded were elicited by particular inquiries. In the following June I returned home from the Texas army, and my parents several times rehearsed the whole account to me. At the request of several persons I have here honestly endeavored to make a faithful record of the same.
Before doing so, I refreshed my memory with repeated conversations with my only living parent, Mrs. Mary Ann Zuber, now in her seventy-eighth year, and since the first writing I have read this account to her and corrected it according to her suggestions.
God had endowed my mother with close observation and extraordinary memory, and I had inherited them. Hence what Rose stated became stamped upon her memory and mine. I admired the sentiments of Travis’s speech even as they had come to me third-hand, and not in the speaker’s own language. I regretted the apparent impossibility of the speech being preserved for posterity. In 1871 I determined to commit it to paper and try by rearrangement of its disconnected parts to restore its form as a speech. I had enjoyed a slight personal acquaintance with Colonel Travis, had heard repetitions of some of his remarks as a lawyer before the courts, and had read printed copies of some of his dispatches from the Alamo. After refreshing my memory by repeated conversations with my mother, I wrote the sentiments of the speech in what I imagined to be Travis’s style, but was careful not to change the sense. I devoted several weeks of time to successive rewritings and transpositions of the parts of that speech. This done, I was surprised at the geometrical neatness with which the parts fell together.
Of course it is not pretended that Colonel Travis’s speech is reported literally, but the ideas are precisely those he advanced, and most of the language is also nearly the same.
Prairie Plains, Grimes County, Texas, May 9, 1871.
I have carefully examined the foregoing letter of my son, William P. Zuber
and feel that I can endorse it with the greatest propriety. The arrival of Moses
Rose at our residence, his condition when he came, what transpired during his
stay , and the tidings that we afterwards heard of him are all correctly stated.
The part which purports to be Rose’s statement of what he saw and heard in
the Alamo, of his escape, and of what befell him afterwards is precisely the
substance of what Rose stated to my husband. and myself.
MARY ANN ZUBER
AN ESCAPE FROM THE ALAMO
PRAIRIE PLAINS, GRIMES COUNTY, TEXAS, MAY 7 1871
EDITOR TEXAS ALMANAC:
I regard the following account worthy of preservation, as it embraces a report of the last scene in the Alamo that has ever been made known to the survivors of those who fell in the fortress.
Moses Rose, a native of France, was an early immigrant to Texas , and resided in Nacodoches, where my father, Mr. Abraham Zuber made his acquaintance in 1827. I believe that he never married. My father regarded and treated him as a friend, and I have often heard him say that he believed Rose to be a man of strict veracity. In 1830, I saw him several times at my father’s residence, in what is now St. Augustine county. He was then about forty-five years old, and spoke very broken English.
Rose was a warm friend of Col. James Bowie and accompanied or followed him to the Alamo in the fall of 1835, and continued with him till within three days of the fall of the fort.
During the last five days and nights of his stay, the enemy bombarded the fort almost incessantly, and several times advanced to the walls and the men within were so constantly engaged that they ate at slept only at short intervals, while one body of the enemy was retiring to be relieved by another, yet they had not sustained a single loss.
The following is the substance of Rose’s account of his escape and the circumstances connected therewith, as he related them to my parents, and they related them to me:
About two hours before sunset on the third day of March, 1836, the bombardment suddenly ceased and the enemy withdrew at an unusual distance. Taking advantage of that opportunity, Co. Travis paraded all of his effective men in a single file, and, taking his position in front of the centre, he stood for some moments, apparently speechless from emotion. Then, nerving himself for the occasion, he addressed them substantially as follows:
“MY BRAVE COMPANIONS--- Stern necessity compels me to employ the few moments afforded by this probably brief cessation of conflict in making known to you the most interesting, yet the most solemn, melancholy, and unwelcome fact that perishing humanity can realize. But how can I find the language to prepare you for its reception? I cannot do so. All I can say to this purpose is to prepare for the worst. I must come to the point. Our fate is sealed. Within a few days---perhaps in a few hours---we must all be in Eternity. This is our destiny and we can not avoid it. This is our certain doom.
I have deceived you long by the promise of help. But I crave your pardon, hoping that after hearing my explanation, you will not only regard my conduct as pardonable, but heartily sympathize with me in my extreme necessity. In deceiving you, I also deceived myself, having first been deceived by others.
I have continually received the strongest assurances of help from home. Every letter from the council and every one I have seen from individuals at home has teemed with assurances that our people were ready, willing and anxious to come to our relief: and that within a very short time we might confidently expect recruits enough to expel any force that would be brought against us. These assurances I received as facts. They inspired me with the greatest confidence that our little band would be the nucleus of an army of sufficient magnitude to repel our foes and to enforce peace on our own terms. In the honest and simple confidence of my heart, I have transmitted to you these promises of help and my confident hopes of success. But the promised help has not come and our hopes are not to be realized.
I have evidently confided too much in the promises of our friends. But let us not be in haste to censure them. The enemy has invaded our territory much earlier than we anticipated; and their present approach is a matter of surprise. Our friends were evidently not informed of our perilous condition in time to save us. Doubtless they would have been here by the time they expected any considerable force of the enemy. When they find a Mexican army in their midst, I hope they will show themselves true to their cause.
My calls to Colonel Fannin remain unanswered and my messengers have not returned. The probabilities are that his command has fallen into the hands of the enemy, or been cut to pieces, and that our couriers have been cut off.
I trust that I have now explained my conduct to your satisfaction and that you do not censure me for my course. I must again refer to the assurances from home. They are what deceived me, and they caused me to deceive you. Relying upon those assurances, I determined to remain within these walls until the promised help should arrive, stoutly resisting all assaults from without. Upon the same reliance, I retained you here, regarding the increasing forces of our assailants with contempt till thy out-numbered us more than twenty to one, and escape became impossible. For the same reason, I scorned their demand of a surrender at discretion and defied their threat to put every one of us to the sword if the fort should be taken by storm.
I must now speak of our present situation. Here we are surrounded by an army that could almost eat us for breakfast, from whose arms our lives are for the present protected by these stone walls. We have no hope for help, for no force that we could have reasonably expected could cut its way through the strong ranks of these Mexicans. We dare not surrender; for should we do so, that black flag now waving in our sight, as well as the merciless character of our enemies, admonishes us of what would be our doom. We cannot cut our way out through the enemy’s ranks; for, in attempting that, we should all be slain in less than ten minutes. Nothing remains, then, but to stay within this fort and fight to the last moment. In this case we must, sooner or later all be slain; for I am sure that Santa Anna is determined to storm the fort and take it, even at the greatest cost of the lives of his own men.
Then we must die! Our speedy dissolution is a fixed and inevitable fact. Our business is not to make a fruitless effort to save or lives, but to choose the manner of our death. But three modes are presented to us. Let us choose that by which we may best serve our country. Shall we surrender and be deliberately shot without taking the life of a single enemy? Shall we try to cut our way through the Mexican ranks and be butchered before we can kill twenty of our adversaries? I am opposed to either method; for in either case we could but lose our lives without benefiting our friends at home---our fathers and mothers, our brothers and sisters, our wives and little ones. The Mexican army is strong enough to march through the country and exterminate its inhabitants, and our countrymen are not able to oppose them in the open field. My choice, then, is to remain in this fort, to resist every assault, and to sell our lives as dearly as possible.
Then let us band together as brothers and vow to die together. Let us resolve to withstand our adversaries to the last; and at each advance to kill as many of them as possible. And when at last they shall storm our fortress, let us kill them as they come! Kill them as they scale our walls! Kill them as they leap within! kill them as they raise their weapons and as they use them! Kill them as they kill our companions! And continue to kill them as long as one of us shall remain alive!
By this policy I trust we shall so weaken our enemies that our countrymen at home can meet them on fair terms, cut them up, expel them from the country, and thus establish their own independence and secure prosperity and happiness to our families and our country. And be assured that our memory will be gratefully cherished by posterity till all history shall be erased and all noble deeds shall be forgotten.
But I leave every man to his own choice. Should any man prefer to surrender and be tied and shot; or to attempt an escape through the Mexican ranks and be killed before he can run a hundred yards, he is at liberty to do so.
My choice is to stay in this fort and die for my country, fighting as long as breath shall remain in my body. This I will do, even if you leave me alone. Do as you think best---but no man can die with me without affording me comfort in the moment of death.” Colonel Travis then drew his sword and with its point traced a line upon the ground extending from the right to the left of the file. Then, resuming his position in front of the center, he said, “I now want every man who is determined to stay here and die with me to come across this line. Who will be the first? March!”
The first respondent was Tapley Holland, who leaped the line at a bound, exclaiming, “ I am ready to die for my country!” His example was instantly followed by every man in the file, with the exception of Rose. Manifest enthusiasm was universal and tremendous. Every sick man that could walk arose from his bunk and tottered across the line. Colonel Bowie, who could not leave his bed, said, “ Boys, I am not able to go to you, but I wish some of you would be so kind as to remove my cot over there.” Four men instantly ran to the cot and, each lifting a corner, carried it across the line. Then every sick man who could not walk made the same request and had his bunk removed in like manner.
Rose, too was deeply affected, but differently from his companions. He stood till every man but himself had crossed the line. A consciousness of the real situation overpowered him. He sank upon the ground, covered his face, and yielded to his own reflections. For a time he was unconscious of what was transpiring around him. A bright idea came to his relief: He spoke the Mexican dialect very fluently, and, could he once get safely out of the fort, he might easily pass for a Mexican and effect his escape. Thus encouraged, he suddenly roused as if from sleep. He looked over the area of the fort; every sick man’s berth was at its wonted place; every effective soldier was at his post as if waiting orders; he felt as if dreaming.
He directed a searching glance at the cot of Colonel Bowie. There lay his gallant friend. Colonel David Crockett was leaning over the cot, conversing with its occupant in an undertone. After a few seconds, Bowie looked at Rose and said: “You seem not to be willing to die with us, Rose!” “No,” said Rose, “I am not prepared to die and shall not do so if I can avoid it.” Then Crockett also looked at him and said, “You may as well conclude to die with us, old man, for escape is impossible.”
Rose made no reply, but looked up at the top of the wall. “I have often done worse than to climb that wall,” thought he. Suiting the action to the thought, he sprang up, seized his wallet of unwashed clothes, and ascended the wall. Standing on it’s top, he looked down within to take a last view of his dying friends. They were all now in motion, but what they were doing, he heeded not. Overpowered by his feelings, he looked away and saw them no more.
Looking down without, he was amazed at the scene of death that met his gaze. From the wall to a considerable distance beyond, the ground was literally covered with slaughtered Mexicans and pools of blood.
He viewed the horrid scene but a moment. He threw down his wallet and leaped after it; he alighted on his feet, but the momentum of the spring threw him sprawling upon his stomach in a puddle of blood. After several seconds he recovered his breath, arose and picked up his wallet; it had fallen open and several garments had rolled out upon the blood. He hurriedly thrust them back, without trying to cleanse them of the coagulated blood which adhered to them. Then, throwing the wallet across his shoulders, he walked rapidly away.
He took the road which led down to the river around the bend to the ford and through the town by the church. He waded the river at the ford and passed through the town. He saw no person in town, but the doors were all closed and San Antonio appeared as a deserted city.
After passing through town, he turned down the river. A stillness as of death prevailed. When he had gone about a quarter of mile below the town, his ears were saluted by the thunder of the bombardment which was then renewed. That thunder continued to remind him that his friends were true to their cause by a continuous roar with but slight intervals until a little before sunrise on the morning of the sixth, when it ceased and he heard no more.
At twilight he recrossed the river on a foot-log about three miles below the town. He then directed his course eastwardly towards the Guadalupe River, carefully bearing to the right to avoid the Gonzales road.
On the night of the third he traveled all night, but made but little progress, as his way was interrupted by large tracts of cactus, or prickly pear, which constantly gored him with thorns and forced him out of his course. On the morning of the fourth, he was in a wretched plight for traveling, for his legs were full of thorns and very sore. The thorns were very painful and continued to work deeper into the flesh till they produced chronic sores, which are supposed to have terminated his life.
Profiting by experience, he traveled no more by night, but on the two evenings following he made his bed on the soft mesquite grass. On the sixth of March he crossed the Guadalupe by rolling a seasoned log into the water and paddling across with his hands. He afterwards crossed the Colorado in the same manner.
After ascending a high bluff---the east bank of the Guadalupe---he found himself at a deserted house, at which he found plenty of provisions and cooking vessels. There he took his first nourishment after leaving the Alamo. Travel had caused the thorns to work so deep in the flesh that he could not bear the pain of pulling them out, and he had become lame. There he rested two or three days, hoping that his lameness would subside, but it rather grew worse. Thenceforth, he traveled on roads, subsisting, except in the instance to be noted, on provisions which he found in deserted houses. The families were retreating before the threatening advance of the enemy, and between the Guadalupe and Colorado every family on his route had left home. Between the Colorado and the Brazos he found only one family at home. With them he stayed a considerable time; but probably from want of knowledge or skill, they did nothing to relieve his sore legs.
He continued his journey toilsomely, tediously and painfully for several weeks, in which time he encountered many hardships and dangers which for want of space cannot be inserted here. He finally arrived at the residence of my father on Lake Creek, in which is now Grimes County.
The thorns had worked so deeply into his flesh, and rendered him so lame that he walked in much pain, and his steps were short and slow. Of course he was feverish and sick. Moreover he had not changed his apparel since leaving the Alamo. My father supplied him with a clean suit, and my mother had his clothes washed.
My parents had seen in the Telegraph and Texas Register a partial list of those who had fallen at the Alamo, and in it had observed the name of Rose. Having not heard of his escape, they had no doubt that he had died with his companions. On his arrival, my father recognized him instantly, and exclaimed, “My God Rose! Is this you or is it your ghost?” “This is Rose and not a ghost”, was the reply.
My mother caused her washing servant to open Rose’s wallet in her own presence, and found some of the garments glued together with the blood in which they had fallen when thrown from the Alamo.
My parents also examined his legs and by use of forceps, extracted an incredible number of cactus thorns, some of them an inch and a half in length, each of which drew out a lump of flesh and was followed by a stream of blood. Salve which my mother made was applied to his sores and they soon began to heal.
Rose remained at my father’s between two and three weeks. during which time his sores improved rapidly and he hoped soon to be well. He then left for home. We had reliable information of him but once after his departure. He had arrived at him home in Nacodoches, but traveling on foot had caused his legs to inflame anew, and his sores had grown so much worse that his friends thought he could not live for many months. That was the last we heard of him.
During his stay at my father’s Rose related to my parents an account of what transpired in the Alamo before he left it, of his escape and of what befell him afterwards, and at their request he rehearsed it several times till my mother could’ve repeated it as well as he. Most of the minutiae here recorded were elicited by particular inquiries. In the following June I returned home from the Texas army, and my parents several times rehearsed the whole account to me. At the request of several persons I have here honestly endeavored to make a faithful record of the same.
Before doing so, I refreshed my memory with repeated conversations with my only living parent, Mrs. Mary Ann Zuber, now in her seventy-eighth year, and since the first writing I have read this account to her and corrected it according to her suggestions.
God had endowed my mother with close observation and extraordinary memory, and I had inherited them. Hence what Rose stated became stamped upon her memory and mine. I admired the sentiments of Travis’s speech even as they had come to me third-hand, and not in the speaker’s own language. I regretted the apparent impossibility of the speech being preserved for posterity. In 1871 I determined to commit it to paper and try by rearrangement of its disconnected parts to restore its form as a speech. I had enjoyed a slight personal acquaintance with Colonel Travis, had heard repetitions of some of his remarks as a lawyer before the courts, and had read printed copies of some of his dispatches from the Alamo. After refreshing my memory by repeated conversations with my mother, I wrote the sentiments of the speech in what I imagined to be Travis’s style, but was careful not to change the sense. I devoted several weeks of time to successive rewritings and transpositions of the parts of that speech. This done, I was surprised at the geometrical neatness with which the parts fell together.
Of course it is not pretended that Colonel Travis’s speech is reported literally, but the ideas are precisely those he advanced, and most of the language is also nearly the same.
Prairie Plains, Grimes County, Texas, May 9, 1871.
I have carefully examined the foregoing letter of my son, William P. Zuber
and feel that I can endorse it with the greatest propriety. The arrival of Moses
Rose at our residence, his condition when he came, what transpired during his
stay , and the tidings that we afterwards heard of him are all correctly stated.
The part which purports to be Rose’s statement of what he saw and heard in
the Alamo, of his escape, and of what befell him afterwards is precisely the
substance of what Rose stated to my husband. and myself.
MARY ANN ZUBER
